(Crossposted to my main blog.)

Got a call from the veterinarian this morning.

The call was a strange one. Not that the situation could ever be considered normal. Not by me, anyway. The vet probably makes calls like that a lot.

She got the results from Happy's blood tests. Not good. His kidneys were almost completely failed. He'd lost almost eight pounds since he was last weighed in September. And most of that weight loss was muscle mass. He was not diabetic, and his condition wasn't contagious to my other cats.

There wasn't any hope for long-term survival - that's pretty much what she told me.

Then she told me that he'd gone into cardiac arrest and died this morning when they were treating him.

Seems to me that she could have told me that in the first place.

I'm really not trying to be funny. It's just that this is going to hit me pretty hard before too long, and I wanted to write something before I lost my mind.

It would have been eleven years, on New Year's Eve. That's not nearly long enough.

Well I see that my fellow felines have chosen to ignore my boycott of this journal.

What a couple of pussies.

No pun intended.

The human continues his stubborn refusal to allow me to get anywhere near any yummy birds, and this morning his ineptitude showed even more.

Our food bowl was empty from approximately 1:00 AM last night until 9:45 this morning!

How we managed to stay alive, I'll never know

I used to really like the vacuum lady. She was nice to me and she would pet me.

Now I'm scared of her.

She's just weird.

She puts water all over the kitchen and then, she wipes the water off.

What's up with that?

Why not just, Oh I dunno, not put water all over the kitchen in the first place?

And don't even get me started with all the vacuuming.

At least today she didn't vacuum the basement, so I had that as a safe zone.

Well I've decided that I'm going to write something here.

Buddy says that we're not supposed to write here any more because the human is a poopie-head that won't let us go outside and eat birds, but I think that Buddy is the poopie-head.

Plus, the birds are kinda scary so I'm glad I'm in the house where I'm safe from them.

Tonight the human was messing around with his flashy thing. I think it's called a camera, but I'm not sure. The human kept pointing it at me and then this bright light would go off and I'd see these blobby thing floating around. I tried to chase the blobby things but I never could catch one.

Then the human gave me a catnip toy and I got a little bit stoned.

Some of you may be bothered by the fact that Happy, Nugget, and I hardly ever post anything.

But really, if you think about it - what are we supposed to write about?

We're cats after all.

It's not like our lives are full of interesting events. We all mostly just sleep and eat and poop.

Sometimes stuff does happen that's worth writing about though.

Stuff like the fact that it's a zillion degrees in this house and the stupid human isn't doing anything about it. He's just sitting there watching TV.

It's not like we ask for much. Just that he feeds us, pets us, cleans our litterbox, and plays with us every now and then.

And keep us safe from harm. That's an important one.

Now maybe I'm just being overly dramatic, but wouldn't roasting to death count as harm? Wouldn't you think that once he saw how we were suffering in this heat that he'd, I dunno, TURN THE AIR CONDITIONING BACK ON?

It may be time to find a new human. I think this one may be defective.

A story I remember reading long ago and found tonight.

Everyone in the apartment complex I lived in knew who Ugly was. Ugly was the resident tomcat. Ugly loved three things in this world: fighting, eating garbage, and shall we say, love.

The combination of these things combined with a life spent outside had their effect on Ugly. To start with, he had only one eye, and where the other should have been was a gaping hole. He was also missing his ear on the same side, his left foot appeared to have been badly broken at one time, and had healed at an unnatural angle, making him look like he was always turning the corner. His tail has long been lost, leaving only the smallest stub, which he would constantly jerk and twitch. Ugly would have been a dark gray tabby striped-type, except for the sores covering his head, neck, even his shoulders with thick, yellowing scabs.

Every time someone saw Ugly there was the same reaction. "That's one UGLY cat!!" All the children were warned not to touch him, the adults threw rocks at him, hosed him down, squirted him when he tried to come in their homes, or shut his paws in the door when he would not leave. Ugly always had the same reaction. If you turned the hose on him, he would stand there, getting soaked until you gave up and quit. If you threw things at him, he would curl his lanky body around your feet in forgiveness. Whenever he spied children, he would come running meowing frantically and bump his head against their hands, begging for their love. If you ever picked him up he would immediately begin suckling on your shirt, earrings, whatever he could find.

One day Ugly shared his love with the neighbors huskies. They did not respond kindly, and Ugly was badly mauled. From my apartment I could hear his screams, and I tried to rush to his aid. By the time I got to where he was lying, it was apparent Ugly's sad life was almost at an end. Ugly lay in a wet circle, his back legs and lower back twisted grossly out of shape, a gaping tear in the white strip of fur that ran down his front.

As I picked him up and tried to carry him home I could hear him wheezing and gasping, and could feel him struggling. I must be hurting him terribly I thought. Then I felt a familiar tugging, sucking sensation on my ear - Ugly, in so much pain, suffering and obviously dying was trying to suckle my ear. I pulled him closer to me, and he bumped the palm of my hand with his head, then he turned his one golden eye towards me, and I could hear the distinct sound of purring. Even in the greatest pain, that ugly battled-scarred cat was asking only for a little affection, perhaps some compassion.

At that moment I thought Ugly was the most beautiful, loving creature I had ever seen. Never once did he try to bite or scratch me, or even try to get away from me, or struggle in any way. Ugly just looked up at me completely trusting in me to relieve his pain.

Ugly died in my arms before I could get inside, but I sat and held him for a long time afterwards, thinking about how one scarred, deformed little stray could so alter my opinion about what it means to have true pureness of spirit, to love so totally and truly. Ugly taught me more about giving and compassion than a thousand books, lectures, or talk show specials ever could, and for that I will always be thankful. He had been scarred on the outside, but I was scarred on the inside, and it was time for me to move on and learn to love truly and deeply. To give my total to those I cared for.

Many people want to be richer, more successful, well liked, beautiful but for me, I will always try to be Ugly. ~ Author Unknown

(crossposted to main 'blog)

Today, Spook died.

She'd been falling quickly for the fast couple of weeks, not eating as much, only wanting attention. I tried once to pick her up to take her to the vet but she didn't like that one little bit, so I let her be.

This morning when I left for work Spook was laying on the sidewalk. She didn't get up and come to me like she usually did. She just looked at me and gave her pathetic meow. I figured that she would be dead by the time I got home, so I spent a few extra minutes petting her and telling her what a good kitty she was.

When I got home from work, Spook was on the deck and she raised her head to watch me pull into the garage.

I took a can of food out to the deck and poured it into her bowl. She came over and took a bite, purring loudly. She always liked to be petted while she ate, and this always made her purr.

After she took a bite of food, she fell over.

She died with her eyes open, so the last thing she saw was me. The last thing she felt was me petting her. The last sound she made was a purr. The last sound she heard was me saying

You like that food, don't you Spooky? What a good kitty!

I tried to dig a hole for her, but ended up putting her into the hole I'd discovered in my yard the other day.

It's under the Japanese Maple. She always liked it there.

I'm sure this will hit me harder at some point.

I added a small bit about her to my Cats of the Past page.

The other day the human set up some kind of elaborate cat trap in the house.

At least that's what I thought. Then Buddy said it was just some network cables that the human put there for us to play with.

That was awful nice of the human to do that.

Today me and Buddy had a race to see who could chew through one of the cables the fastest.

I think I won!

But now the human is mad at us. I don't know why. There is plenty more cable laying around the floor.

Today the human slept all day long.

Before you say anything, I know that all I do is sleep all day. But the human usually doesn't - he only sleeps at night and sometimes for a little while in the evening.

But today, he slept all day long. On the couch. And my food bowl was almost empty.

I tried several times to wake him up. I tried smelling his eyes. I tried jumping up and down on his tummy. I tried licking his nose. I even tried swatting him in the face with my tail.

Nothing worked. He just kept sleeping.

Heck, even Nugget and Buddy got into the act. Buddy would meow and Nugget would whine, but all the human would do is maybe just turn over and sleep some more.

Eventually, Buddy had the brilliant idea of knocking the lampshade onto the human's head. That woke him up real quick! And the good thing was that it was Buddy that got yelled at!

Once it got almost dark again the human finally got up and poured some food in the bowl, so I went and ate some food before it was all gone.

The human is playing dumb.

He's pretending that there aren't birds outside, and not only that, he's pretending that he doesn't understanding me when I yell:

Hey human! There are birds outside! Either let me out or go catch some birds and bring them to me! Do it now! If you don't I will poop on your floor! You have been warned!

I mean, how much more clear could I be?

The human never hesitates to tell Nugget when the outside cats or that ugly-assed opossum is outside. I guess he might do that because Nugget is stupid.

Well I'm not stupid, but even I can't figure out how to get outside to eat some birds. I need the human's help, and he pretends that he doesn't understand. What a jerk.

Oh, I would really like a yummy bird right about now.